progressive

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Promoting or favoring progress towards improved conditions or new policies, ideas.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pruhgrehsiv

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US device voice

IPA pronunciation (US)

pɹəɡˈɹɛsɪv

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

Promoting or favoring progress towards improved conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods.
Gradually advancing in extent; increasing.
of taxes
Adjusted so that the rate increases as the amount of income increases
of an income tax or other tax
Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases.
Of or pertaining to such a party, its policies, or its membership.
Advancing in severity.

noun

A person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties
A person who actively favors or strives for progress towards improved conditions, as in society or government.
A dinner party in which each successive course is prepared and eaten at the residence of a different host.
One with liberal or progressive political beliefs.
A member or supporter of a Progressive Party.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency: Common
Typical Use: Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Promoting or favoring progress towards improved conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods.

Used this way, progressive is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone: Neutral
Formality: Neutral
Intensity: Not strongly marked
How common: Moderately common
Connotation: No strong connotation
Usage feel: Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Promoting / favouring

progressive development

Gradually

progressive relaxation

Other combinations

progressive erarapidly progressiveslowly progressiveprogressive loss

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

progressivelyadverbDerived adverb
Advancing in amount or intensity.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

progressive partynounCompound term
A former political party in the United States.
progressive rocknounCompound term
A style of rock music that emerged in the 1970s.
progressive taxnounCompound term
Any tax in which the rate increases as the amount subject to taxation increases.
progressive tensenounCompound term
A tense of verbs used in describing action that is on-going.
progressive vaccinianounCompound term
A severe or even fatal form of vaccinia that occurs mainly in persons with an immunological deficiency.
progressive aspectnounCompound term
The aspect of a verb that expresses its on-going action.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties

liberalreformistDated

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.